User Guide iOS¶

Authentication¶

The first step of each application is to login or signup a new user. Once you have imported the SDK into your project, you can login using the following code snippet.

BAAClient *client = [BAAClient sharedClient];
[client authenticateUsername:@"john"
                withPassword:@"supersecretpassword"
           completionHandler:^(BOOL success, NSError *error) {
     if (success) {
             NSLog(@"user authenticated %@",
                   client.authenticatedUser);
     } else {
             NSLog(@"error in logging in %@",
                   error.localizedDescription);
     }
 }];

Notice that the information about the user (e.g. username and authentication token) is automatically saved by the SDK. Once you get into the success part of the block you are authenticated and you can make other authenticated calls.

Sign up¶

Using the SDK you can even allow the creation of new users. The pattern is pretty similar to the login. Here is an example.

BAAClient *client = [BAAClient sharedClient];
[client createUserWithUsername:@"john"
                   andPassword:@"supersecretpassword"
             completionHandler:^(BOOL success, NSError *error) {
                if (success) {
                        NSLog(@"user created %@", client.authenticatedUser);
                } else {
                        NSLog(@"error in creating user: %@", error);
                }
    }];

Notice that when this call is Whenever you need to know if you are authenticated you can use the following code.

BAAClient *client = [BAAClient sharedClient];
if (client.isAuthenticated) {
        // authenticated }
else {
        // not authenticated. Login or signup.
}

Creating a Model¶

When you are building an application chances are you are saving data in a custom model of yours. For example, a very simple model for a blog post has a title and a body. To build a model in the iOS Baasbox SDK there are two key steps:

• inheriting from BAAObject
• implementing the initWithDictionary: and collectionName methods

To build a custom data model, say SMPost, you have to simply extend the BAAObject class, as follows.

@interface SMPost : BAAObject
@property (copy) NSString *postTitle; @property (copy) NSString *postBody;
@end

By extending the BAAObject you will inherit functionalities like:

• automatic serialization of custom objects in JSON format
• helper methods for creating/updating/reading/deleting objects on the backend

The second step is to implement two methods, initWithDictionary: and collectionName. The first method allows you to deserialize the JSON returned by the server into your custom object. Here is an example for our SMPost class.

(instancetype) initWithDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dictionary {
  self = [super initWithDictionary:dictionary];
   if (self) {
        _postTitle = dictionary[@"postTitle"];
        _postBody = dictionary[@"postBody"];
   }
   return self;

Finally you need to implement the collectionName method. This is the name of the collection[LINK TO COLLECTION] on the server side, that will hold all the instances of class SMPost. Here is an example:

(NSString *)collectionName {
        return @"document/posts";
}
@end

Once you have completed these two steps you are ready to start interacting with the server, performing CRUD operations on posts.

Creating and saving objects¶

When you have your data classes extending BAAObject you can easily save your instances on the server. For example this is a snippet that creates an instance of post and saves it on the back end.

SMPost *p = [[SMPost alloc] init];
p.postTitle = @"Title";
p.postBody = @"Body";
[SMPost saveObject:p
        completion:^(SMPost *post, NSError *error) {
            if (error == nil) {
                NSLog(@"created post on server %@", post);
            } else {
                NSLog(@"error in saving %@", error);
            }
         }];

In the completion block you can either check for the error to be nil or the object to be not nil. The saveObject:completion: method can be also used to update an existing object.

Deleting objects¶

To delete an existing object on the back end you can use the deleteObject:completion: like this.

// p is an instance of post
[SMPost deleteObject:p withCompletion:^(BOOL success, NSError *error) {
   if (success) {
        NSLog(@"Post deleted"); }
   else {
        NSLog(@"Post not deleted %@", error.localizedDescription);
   }
}];

Loading objects¶

To load a collection of objects you just call the class methods getObjectsWithCompletion:

[SMPost getObjectsWithCompletion:^(NSArray *objects, NSError *error) {
}];

This method will return an array of instances of SMPost. When loading lists of objects this way all the results are paginated. This call will return the first page of results using the default page length parameter set in the SDK. If you want to tweak it look for BAAPageLength. If you need to specify page number and size look at the following section.

Pagination¶

To allow you loading objects in a paginated way you can use the following method

[SMPost getObjectsWithParams:@{kPageNumber : @0, kPageSize : @10}
                  completion:^(NSArray *objects, NSError *error) {
     if (error == nil) {
        _posts = [objects mutableCopy];
        [self.tableView reloadData];
     } else {
         NSLog(@"error %@", error.localizedDescription);
     }
 }];

Page number and size will be injected in the http call that retrieves the elements. As the previous example the result is an array of SMPost instances.

Getting Started Tutorial¶

Build an App now! Go to our Getting Started Tutorial to learn how to integrate BaasBox into an existing application. The application is called DearDiary and it’s a personal diary. Go to Tutorial